Joy is a new addition to my little family – now Micah has a naughty, younger but bigger brother that I must say he doesn’t seem too keen to get to know.

Joy is a stray dog that hung around the trainers’ houses at work. One of the trainers there was kind enough to feed him food, and knowing that he would get regularly fed, he always came back in meal hours – morning, afternoon and dinner.

He was such a scared little thing – I tried approaching him several times and he ran away immediately, despite the food and yummy treats I bought for him. I ended up visiting the trainers’ house everyday just to see how he was doing, and also so he would be familiarized with me.

I really don’t know what made me want to adopt him. When I first saw him I felt this kind of sadness washing over me – he was small, afraid and lonely. He seemed to mistrust strangers immensely – perhaps it was because he had a bad experience with humans before. Any sudden movements would surprise and scared him off.

On fridays, the skills trainers usually went back to their hometown, and I kept thinking about who was going to feed Joy. I was driving home when I thought about this and it was right then I knew that I had to bring him home with me. It was clear that he had lost his mother and nobody was going to take care of him if it weren’t me.

So the following week, I talked to my husband and even showed him a picture of Joy (the skill trainer named him) and he agreed that we should take care of this dog. On Tuesday, I called the nearest petshop and arranged to have Joy picked up, bathed and cleaned from any fleas or ticks that stuck on his skin. In the afternoon, I picked him up and took him home, exactly on February 9th 2012.

A few days after, he joked about how the boys in my life were all born in February, and it dawned on me that he was right – my husband and Micah were both born in February and I brought Joy home in the same month too.

So with the presence of Joy, we begin a new journey that we’re already familiar and yet feel strange at the same time. We knew how to raise a dog now that we have Micah but Joy is a much bigger dog and he has a different character compared to Micah.

One thing I know for sure – Joy is no longer the scared little dog I once knew. On the first day I brought him home, his back was curved, he was nervous and he kept hiding under the table. Now he stand stall, he’s not as skinny as he used to be, and he steals our clothes from the clothes line. That, I take it, is a sign that he loves us, and that is enough for me.

I knew he was one of the weak ones; he was actually repeating the class because he failed the previous one. But I’d seen improvements from him, and he tried so hard to keep up, and I kept thinking I should do something to help him.

But that opportunity never came, because the academic director had told him before that if he still couldn’t improve after three weeks, he had to go home, and I didn’t know anything about it.

What killed me more was the fact that he didn’t tell me about it, he’d kept it to himself for three weeks and I couldn’t do anything to keep him in the class because he had already made an agreement with the Academic Director. I just thought it was deeply unfair that he couldn’t stay until the end of the course and get to be interviewed like the rest of the students there. I even stated my objection but the AD was adamant that what was agreed couldn’t be changed.

It was hard for me to see him go, as I was the one who saw him everyday in class, and I noticed how hard he tried, and he did show improvements, and my belief in him grew; I had faith that he could make it this time around.

When the news had to be given to him, I saw that he was disappointed, but what killed me more was that he was still smiling and said that it was alright, that he would come back next year and try again. He was so optimistic still, even though he had failed.

It was even more unbearable to see him come to class and pack his bags while the rest of his classmates just stared at him in disbelief. I had to hide what I was feeling at that time, and fortunately I was pretty good at it. I’m not sure whether the students saw what my face looked like at that time but I was about ready to cry right then and there, in front of all of them.

It’s funny in a way, because this class was pretty solid and most of them were quite smart. But there was always the one student that I couldn’t save. It’s funny how I cared more about the one that I couldn’t save. And I don’t know why up to this moment I am still deeply troubled by it. Everytime I think about it, I have tears in my eyes.

Yesterday he added me on Facebook and I told him how sorry I was for not being able to help him, and he said, “It’s OK, Ma’am. I am stupid.”

No, you are not. No one is. You are good, but in the real world, being good is simply not enough. There is no place for good people who have to work ten times harder than the rest just because they are slow. There’s no place for effort, no matter how insignificant, to be appreciated. And I feel like I am a part of this cruel world.

I am sorry, I am not your savior. I wish I could be.

Have you read The Devil Wears Prada? It’s a novel written by Lauren Weisberger. When I first read it, I was impressed. It was a brilliant novel portraying the reality of work life from the eye of a naive and idealistic fresh-grad. I could easily relate to it since I’ve had several jobs where I imagined perfect plots to murder my bosses. Imaginary plots, of course.

In the book, the protagonist, Andrea goes through a personal change of character;  when she first starts working, she loathes the job, ridicules the fashion world (she works in a fashion magazine, in the book it is thought to be in the same calibre as Vogue), and she absolutely despises her boss, Miranda Priestly, with passion. It seems as if Miranda exists to make the life of every single person who work for her, including Andrea’s, a living hell.

What amazes me the most is the fact that how rare it is to find a solid, real-honest-to-God good bosses; the one that you can really look up to. Most of the time, we hear people complaining about their bosses; they’re mean, bitchy, unreasonable, selfish, immature, manipulative, unhappy, moody and I’m sure there are many other adjectives that you can think of, based on your own personal experiences with your bosses.

Funny, considering that these bosses used to be in our position, surely they must know how it feels like to be a fresh-grad, to be young, to be working for someone who is so evil, to loathe the person whom you’re working for; so why, oh why, do they end up being the person they used to hate?

It’s like a never-ending cycle.

It makes me think though; do people, somewhere along the way, change, as they move up on their careers? If so, what does? Is it the money? The pressure? The lack of time spent with their family as they get more responsibility heaved on their shoulders? I mean, I can totally relate to that. But can those things really turn a good person into a horrible person that they’d hate themselves if they were in their subordinates’ position?

In The Devil Wears Prada, Andrea eventually learns the ropes of working in a fashion magazine. She improves herself day by day and Miranda the boss starts to appreciate her more, until she trusts Andrea enough to accompany her in the fashion show in Paris, which is a big deal because Andrea gets to sit at the front row seats at the fashion shows and wear couture and gets made up by professional make up artists and most importantly, keeps all the clothes and accessories she wears – which, to people who are passionate about fashion is practically heaven coming true. Unfortunately, Andrea’s love life undergoes a major fall as she spends more time working longer hours, going out and running errands for Miranda, and neglecting her boyfriend and even forgetting his birthday.

I guess Peter Parker’s uncle must be right; Big power comes with big responsibility. Just because you get promoted and get more bonus either in salary or perks, it doesn’t mean that your life gets easier. People think that having a good career and salary must be sweet, but we forget about the things that they have to sacrifice in order to achieve those things; quality time with their loved ones, or children, in which they can never get back, the stress and worry that affect their phisyque (most often than we realize, health problems are caused by stress), the lonely feeling of being on top. I mean, be honest; you don’t exactly look forward to sit at the same table with your boss during lunch time, do you?

In Andrea’s case, the Devil wears Prada. In any other cases, the Devils wear themselves out in reaching for the top and realizing that it is a lonely place.

Wrong. Some are often lost and out-of-focus, and when I do stumble upon these students, I get upset and think that this is their problem, not mine.

A reminder to myself: It’s okay to slow down. Better to spend more time and making sure everyone understand as well as making sure that they read the lessons ahead before they are being discussed, rather than wasting time telling the students off for not listening.

My other weakness is giving instructions – I often forget that different people think differently. Most of the time, because of the time limit and the amount of lessons I have to cover, I belittle the importance of giving actual example of the task in which I want my students to do. I tend to think that verbal instruction is sufficient and that everyone understands – which might work on a Lower Intermediate class, but will definitely fail on an Elementary level class. Even on some cases, I find that giving actual examples by putting myself as a part of the role actually makes a significant amount of difference in both levels.

A reminder to myself: Show them how it’s done exactly so they know exactly what I expect of them. There’s really no other way to do it. This will eliminate students from interpreting things differently and doing unwanted improvisations that again, might result in me getting frustrated for not achieving the target.

To sum it up nicely, my biggest problem when teaching is probably patience. This, I don’t have enough. I don’t like wasting time and I simply can’t afford to; especially when there are twenty students needing my undivided attention and for me to identify each of their strength and weaknesses so I can find out ways to help them. Individually.

I hope I can remind myself to try to put myself in their shoes and think; If I were them, would I hate the teacher? Would I agree with the way she teaches? What could I do better?

Just in case you’re wondering what the heck am I on about, EVOO stands for Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

I know; yummy, right? It’s the stuff you dip your crusty bread into. The stuff you mix into your al dente pasta. Or your salad if you are slimming.

What some of you don’t know – and trust me, it grossed me out the first time I heard it too – is that EVOO could actually replace all the skincare products you’ve been using all your life. It works as a cleanser, make up remover and an all-over excellent moisturizer either for your face or body.

I’ve been using EVOO to replace my usual skincare routine for about a month now and it is safe to say that it gives more benefit than any other expensive skincare that claims to make my skin more beautiful. As some of you already know, I have an oily skin with occasional breakouts. Recently, I’ve developed these tiny pimples that are hard to get rid of. And I’ve tried different skincare after skincare starting from cleanser, moisturizers and toners and none of them does jack shit to my pimples.

Even Himself had suggested stopping the usual skincare routine because I might be allergic to one or some of them. He did have a point though because when the pimples started occuring, I was using this moisturizer and toner from The Face Shop (which claimed to help blemished skin, ironically), BRTC Blemish Recovery BB Cream (again, notice the blemish bit, I WAS obsessed, clearly), and Revlon ColorStay Mineral Foundation.

So I went back to the old Vitamin C Body Shop facial moisturizer and Body Shop Mineral Powder Foundation. I did notice improvement but the one thing I was concerned was that I did put on make up at work too and I was worried I might not have been cleaning my face properly, which might cause the pimples developing on my face!

Then I noticed someone in FemaleDaily.com forum mentioned something about OCM (Oil Cleansing Method). She said she never used facial cleansers, just oil. I was like, “Whaaat? My face is oily as it is, thank you very much!”

She said she used EVOO mixed with Castor Oil and it helped remove make up so much better than any other make up remover there is on the market. Now I’ve noticed that oil make up remover is quite in now, since Shu Uemura produced theirs.

So I started gathering information from Google and stumbled upon many sites claiming the benefits of using EVOO to remove make up as well as being used as a skincare in here, here and here. There are tons of other sites claiming EVOO as a great skincare product to use, just Google it!

So what the heck, I’d give it a try, right? As much as it grossed me putting more oil onto my already oily face.  I went to the supermarket, bought a bottle of Filippo’s EVOO, mixed it with a bit of Lavender Oil and put it in this special bottle that comes with a pump. I used Lavender oil because I couldn’t find Castor oil anywhere. If you know, let me know where, because I really want to get one!

At first I applied the oil on a cotton pad and just used it to remove my eye make up and clean my face – no water. But then I worried about the waste – imagine using so many cotton pads everyday! So I opted for just applying the oil straight to my face, while it was dry and all, massage it a bit and just wash with whatever facial cleanser I have.

Amazing results – it helped clear my skin and remove the stupid freaking whiteheads I’d been so desperately trying to unplug from my pores! Sometimes I mix a bit of baking soda with EVOO and use it as a face mask and it practically clears and take out all the whiteheads, you can actually see them coming out, which you can just remove using a hot damp towel.

Not only that EVOO is an all-purpose skincare product, it is 100% natural and does not contain any preservatives nor chemicals that might damage your skin in the long run. Imagine all those products you’ve been using; some of the ingredients you can’t even read because they’re so freaking long! You know what I mean, stuff like methylizoparabeneoylinone… like, seriously?!

I’m so glad I’ve started using EVOO now – I’m doing my skin a favor by saving it from the torture of being sucked into the beauty industry – most of the skincare that promise beauty are all marketing gimmicks anyway!